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So remember a few weeks ago when I confessed to you that I was drawing centerpiece designs in my workout journal at the gym, and we agreed that it was not pathetic? Well I had another not-pathetic gym moment. I should probably start calling this blog “Gym Diaries of an Insane Girl.”

So I just got done watching the series finale of this BBC show called Arthur Merlin (without fail I always accidentally call it Arthur [one of the main characters on the show], why would typing be any different). So I’ve watched all 5 seasons on Netflix, and it was always entertaining enough, made me laugh at the very least, but Tom dipped out around season 2. Before I get to my point, I should probably let you know that I always get really attached to characters in my show and start feeling like we’re friends. And when they go on season breaks, I always start missing my friends. So I tuned back into Arthur Merlin once I got back on Netflix and my friends and I had had a long hiatus from one another so I was so excited to see how they were doing in Camelot. I was very pleasantly surprised that I was totally addicted to the last season. And then came the series finale… **Spoiler alert!** and Arthur dies!! My favorite character friend! And I was devastated. I cried. I called Tom to tell him about it and due to the pathetic-ness of that statement of me crying being true, I spoke into the phone strategically so as not to imply I was crying. Because that would be embarrassing…………

The next day rolled around and I was able to put it behind me. Until I was at the gym. For some reason I started thinking about my character friend’s death, and how sad my other character friend Merlin was. And my eyes started watering up in between my sets of deadlifts. And I had to walk over to the window and pull myself together. Honestly, what the heck?! I mean seriously. And by the way, nothing kills your motivation at the gym faster than being on the verge of crying in public.

Coffee Filter Garland

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up! I’m mostly excited for corn beef and cabbage, and I mostly made this garland because mint is one of my wedding colors, but it would be a perfect St. Patrick’s Day decoration!

What you need:

Acrylic paint

Large bowl

Sponge brush

White coffee filters- I used 400 3″ filters

Twine

Pointed tip screwdriver

Tin foil

Baking sheet

Few pieces of scotch tape

Fabric glue (optional)

Instructables:

Step 1: You will be using several different mixes to get all the different colors. Fill the bowl with some water, a couple inches. Add some paint, and using the sponge brush, mix it in, being sure to sweep the bottom to make sure you get all the globs of paint. The more water, the lighter the color. The more paint the darker the color. Obvious enough.

Step 2: Lay some tin foil on the baking sheets and set the oven to 220 degrees. I stayed in the kitchen the whole time, precautions to not burn the house down.

Step 3: Grab about 25 filters at a time in a bunch and dip them in the bowl of paint and water. Make sure they all get drenched. Squeeze out just a little bit of the water from the filters when you pick them up. In about sets of 10 (guesstimate), lay them on the tin foil and bake for about 20 minutes. Check every so often.

Step 4: Repeat this process.

Step 5: Once they are all dry, take a small stack and push the screwdriver through the middle. Before you pull the screwdriver back out, tape the end of the twine to the top of the screwdriver right below the handle (you will be taping it to the thin metal stick so you can get the twine through the filters). As alluded to, you will re-push the screwdriver through the filters so that the taped twine ends up all the way through too. Then untape the twine and pull it through. You can now fully remove the screwdriver from the middles of the filters.

Step 6: Repeat this step. Once all the filters are on the twine, tie a large knot at each end of the garland, and tie a loop shortly after that knot (moving outward). The first knot will keep the filters from going anywhere and the second knot/loop is what you can use to hang the garland (both knots pictured below).

Step 7: Cover both knots with the fabric glue to ensure they don’t come undone. When you hang the garland, fluff out the pieces by gently sliding them and swishing your fingers through them.

Here is another coffee filter garland I made slightly different. This one also has book pages, and music sheets.

LASTLY. I made this wreath below out of coffee filters as well. Check back in the future for a tutorial on this one!